I am using a powerscore tutor to bring me up to speed and prep me for exam day. I chose them becuase of their CR and SC books. I enjoy dealing with RC questions and even though the books are dry and boring, it gives awesome information.

WHen I signed up for the tutoring, powerscore linked me up with 800score for my practice exams. I am going to give you my full opinion on the whole experience soon.

There math sections are really good and I agree the algorithm for generating the raw scores looks better that the others out there.

are they harder or easier than mgmat?

Everything I have ever read about 800score tests in this and another GMAT forum indicated they were among the worst tests out there. Stick with GMATPrep, Princeton Review, maybe Manhattan GMAT, but not 800score.com.

what did you hear specifically that was bad about them?

If I recall correctly, for those cats, the math is too hard, the verbal is crap and the algorithm is not very good.

I throughly enjoy and respect the honesty. Thanks for safeguarding me from a waste of time.

mgmat math gives me a hard enough time as it is.

The powerscore tutor is in favor of it.

I heard a few opinions about the 800score practice exams. I just took and its not too pretty and completely different from mgmat.

Nice analysis of questions and overall diagnostics. Definitely a learning tool and the explanations rival those of mgmat. Maybe even better.

Quant:
1. The overall language and taste of language used is much different that of mgmat, kaplan and especially OG.

2. THe questions are much harder. I was holding my own with mgmat and even kaplan 800 book. It seems as if the test makers are speaking a different language.

3. Specifically the wording used in word problems were very hard to understand. Many of the questions were word problems and I didnt see an emphasis on arithmetic. I personally feel that if I can understand kaplan and mgmat, so I should be ok.


4. Overall geometry was puzzling, time consuming and overall very difficult.

Verbal:
1. Wasn't very challenging
2. The RC passages were to interesting and engaging. The detail questions were very easy because the passages were pracitcaly screaming out the textual evidence.
3. SC was screaming out the differences between the choices.
4. Critical Reasoning was not that bad but still not as challenging as mgmat.
5. Again, algorithm has me puzzled.

I answered 3 of the 1st 7 wrong and overall 11 wrong out of 41 and received a verbal score of 29. lol

overall I received a 550 (quant 38 and verbal 29)

I have been working on my stamina because I was getting way too tired during my last three exams. However, I can easily and confidently say I was fresh throughout the whole exam. I didnt take elongated breaks, phone off, music off and was only tired during the last 4 questions of verbal, which I answered correctly.

Resilent, thanks a lot for your review of the 800score.com cats - not many people have taken those cats so we do not often see such detailed info about them.

Nice analysis of questions and overall diagnostics. Definitely a learning tool and the explanations rival those of mgmat. Maybe even better.

Good analysis and diagnostics is a good thing in a cat.

Quant:
1. The overall language and taste of language used is much different that of mgmat, kaplan and especially OG.

This is somewhat dangerous especially if you are taking this near the end of your studies and these are the cat you are practicing just before the real deal. This could put you in a whole different mindset. However, if these cats were taken at the very beginning of your studies, it could possibly be helpful to actually see "bad" problems as it might help you learn how the test writers think when they write their "good" problems.

I actually tend to disagree with the reviewer. I have given 4 out of 5 maths test and I found them to be of high quality. We should expect to see this level of questions in 700-800 range in GMAT. Good thought has been given when writing these questions and hence helps one to take notice of some of the basic details that we ought to miss out in Maths.

Additionally, the explanations are really good even better than MGMAT.

This is somewhat dangerous especially if you are taking this near the end of your studies and these are the cat you are practicing just before the real deal. This could put you in a whole different mindset. However, if these cats were taken at the very beginning of your studies, it could possibly be helpful to actually see "bad" problems as it might help you learn how the test writers think when they write their "good" problems.

Thank you for the response. As far as your warning here, what do you recommend for me to in this case. I am not sure if I am understanding you correctly. Any help? Also I didn't explain that my scores dropped 100 points from mgmat. I was scoring 650 mgmat, 640 mgmat, 640 mgmat and then 550 800scorecat.

Naturally a bit discouraging also.

You cannot really compare scores from different cats unless you are satisfied that the algorithms and questions are sufficiently similar enough to be comparable. In other words, make sure you are comparing oranges to oranges. For example, it is well known that the Kaplan cat has a serious algorithm deficiency and comparing a 500 score on Kaplan to a 500 score on GMATPrep is not very convenient.

Let me ask you: why did you stop taking the MGMAT cats? Have you already finished all 6? If not, I would keep taking those because you are guaranteed the scores can be safely compared to one another.

I only have been dealing with 800score because of my tutor and him insisting on me taking these exams. After speaking with the tutor, we went over the exam and he points out that the overall score was low because I missed 4 out of first eleven. I will definitely keep on with mgmat and the question banks. THis is best in imo. I just hope I wont hurt anything by mixing up both at same time.